1 comments/ 15964 views/ 2 favorites 3. The Grace I've Known Ch. 07-09 By: inspirixis1 CHAPTER SEVEN Grace woke up at the usual time, 4:45 am. It only took a few seconds for what had happened to settle over her. She felt stupid and embarrassed. She lay in bed and listened as Nicholas got up to go pee, and then a few minutes later she heard a second person go pee. So Adrian had decided to stay the night. She wouldn't have been surprised if he had have left, but he stayed. She didn't know if that made her happy or not. It showed that he cared, but now she would have to face him, she would have to explain why she flipped out for no apparent reason. Grace didn't even know why she had suddenly become unable to handle the situation. She'd still had almost all of her clothes on, the only thing she'd taken off was her cardigan, and the only thing Adrian had taken off was his shirt. She'd seen Adrian shirtless thousands of times. When it was sunny he liked to row shirtless. They had been lying side by side kissing, and then he'd moved on top of her and she had felt the hard lump in the front of his jeans pressing up against her leg and she'd lost it. Suddenly she had been back under the overpass and there had been a different guy on top of her grunting and pounding while he held her arms down and the others looked on and laughed and stroked their disgustingly swollen penises. It had felt so real. She had been so powerless. She had needed Nicholas to help bring her back. Now she felt stupid. What was she going to say to Adrian? Nicholas would understand, but she didn't want to tell Adrian about the rape. She didn't want him to know incase he thought less of her. He might not want to be with her anymore if he knew that she had been used in that way. She lay in bed and fought the urge to pee. She was used to urinating at 4:45 am, even on Sundays she usually got up around 5:30 to pee. Now it was close to 6:00 and she heard movement in the apartment and then voices. Nicholas and Adrian were talking. She sighed and got up and went to the toilet and showered. When she came out to the kitchen Nicholas poured her a cup of tea, automatically added the milk and sugar, and handed her the mug. She glanced at Adrian quickly, "Morning," she said quietly. "Hey Gracie, look at this..." Nicholas motioned for her and she went to look at his computer. "Some guy in China got so sick of his wife's nagging that he jumped off the boat they were on and into to Yangtze." She scanned over the article as she sipped her tea, it was from the BBC world news website. She looked at the other tabs he had active: Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg.com, New York Times, Boston Herald and Denver Post. Nicholas loved reading the news, it was probably why he was so smart. "You should send that to Uncle Josh, he'd get a kick out of it." Their Uncle Josh's relationship with his wife Anna was based solely around them teasing each other and one of the things that he liked to tease her about was her constant nagging. He liked to call her 'that confounded woman,' and she liked to call him 'the old ball and chain.' It was affectionate teasing. They were clearly enamored with each other. Nicholas smiled at her. "Yeah I know, I already did." "That's your mom's brother?" Adrian asked her. "Josh? No, he's Nicholas' dad's brother." Adrian's eyes rose to the ceiling and he repeated the statement, "Nicholas' dad's brother..." She had shown him photos of everyone last night, he was probably trying to remember who was who and piece it all together. "You mean Nicholas' step-dad's brother?" "No, his dad. In our family you only get a qualifier if you're the one who isn't around." "Oh. Okay." She didn't mean for that to cause an awkward silence, she wasn't trying to put him in his place or anything she was just trying to explain the way things worked. It wasn't that she had hard feelings towards her biological parents, she didn't, it was just that Sam and Emma were her real parents. They were the ones who were there to tuck her in to bed every night, to put band-aids on her boo-boos, to check her homework and meet with her teachers. When she was cast as the lead in her high school's yearly musical they were the ones who took her out to dinner to celebrate and they were the ones who brought flowers to her dressing room. They cared for her and provided for her. They were her parents. Grace also loved her biological mother and father. For some reason her mom had insisted that she keep in contact with them. At the time she had thought it was stupid, it was so much extra work, but now she was thankful for it. Every thanksgiving her mom took her to see Lucia, her biological mother, in the morning while her dad cooked the dinner, and every Christmas eve her dad took her to see Robert, her biological father. Her biological parents had been juniors in high school when she was born. Fifteen year olds fucking at the local make-out point were what had created Grace. They had never been boyfriend and girlfriend. Grace's biological mother had kept her for almost a year, at which point she had decided that it would be best for everyone involved if she gave her up for adoption. Lucia was from a large Hispanic family that lived below the poverty line. Her family had encouraged her to keep Grace, but she wanted to go back to school. She wanted something better for herself, and Grace liked to believe that she wanted something better for her too. Now she worked as a nurse and she was married with two children. Grace's mom had taken her to the hospital to visit when her biological sister and brother were born, but Grace didn't feel for them what she felt for her real brothers, Zach, Matthew, Micah and Ollie. Robert was your typical working class white guy. He was a mechanic at a small shop that specialized in European cars. He was a nice guy in a simple way. Robert would shake her dad's hand and thank him profusely every time he brought her to visit. Every year he had a Christmas gift for her and when she was a little girl she had treasured them. She wondered how that had made her dad feel, for his daughter to be so touched by the gifts of a man who was a relative stranger. Grace and Adrian looked at each other across the kitchen. He looked so much like her dad. Shit. She was fucking this up. "Tell him about Josh the cow," Nicholas said. She smiled. Nicholas loved that story. He had been so obsessed with the photos when they were little. She went over to the sink and started to tell Adrian the story, pointing to the photos. He stood beside her but he didn't touch her. When she couldn't remember the name of the girl in the photos she turned around to ask Nicholas, but he had gone. It was just she and Adrian in the kitchen. She finished the story and Adrian smiled at her, then he reached out and touched her arm tentatively. "Grace, what happened last night?" He asked. She had thought about what she should tell him and now she took a deep breath. She couldn't look at his eyes, so she looked at his mouth. "I was assaulted last year." She preferred the word assault to rape, assault sounded better, like maybe it was just physical violence that had happened. "Sometimes I still get frightened." "Gracie," he said softly, "I would never hurt you. I would never make you do anything that you don't want to." She nodded. "I know." She put her arm around his waist and he moved closer to her. "Can we try again another time?" "Of course." He moved to face her and puts his arms around her. She sighed as she rested her head on his pectoral muscle. Adrian was so big and solid. She heard Nicholas out in the living room, zippers closing. He must have been packing his gym bag. "We gonna do this?" Adrian asked. "Yep, let's go." They went to the taekwondo gym, as usual, and Mariko was there, as usual. Nicholas normally practiced alone but this morning he wanted to stick around their end of the gym. Instead of practicing his kicks on the mannequin he wanted to practice aikido with Mariko. He was being particularly affectionate towards her, focusing all his attention on her. It bothered Grace. It was stupid and selfish, but she didn't want Nicholas to give all of his attention to Mariko. She didn't necessarily want it all to herself, she just didn't want Mariko to have it all. She and Adrian worked out on the punching and kicking bags, they didn't practice on each other unless Mariko or Nicholas was watching incase they made a mistake and someone got injured. They hadn't been there for very long when a man and a woman dressed in business suits came into the gym. They talked to one of the guys working out near the entrance who pointed over at Nicholas and Mariko. The business suits walked over and interrupted Nicholas. What was going on? Why were people in business suits talking to Nicholas? She immediately assumed the worst. Something had happened to Uncle Tyler or Aunt Maya, or both of them. Grace felt her heart rate accelerate. Please don't let them be dead, she thought. She walked over to them as calmly as she could. "What's going on?" She asked Nicholas. "They're talent scouts, they want to see how I fight... for movies." Grace exhaled. Thank god. "What do you want to see?" Nicholas asked them. "Well, first we need to see you spar, to make sure you wont be a liability. We need to see how fast your reflexes are." She could tell Nicholas was thinking about it, and why shouldn't he? He could probably make a ton of money doing stunts in kung fu movies. He turned and looked at her for a moment, she could see the cogs turning in his brain. Then he turned back to the suit. "Who do I spar?" Nicholas asked. The woman got on the phone and about a quarter of an hour later an Asian guy in a tobok walked in the door, looked around and walked over to the suits. Shit. He looked like a professional. Nicholas strapped his sparring gear on. If he was afraid he didn't show it. He moved quickly and deliberately. Grace stood with Adrian and Mariko at the edge of the dojang floor, along with the crowd of people who had stopped what they were doing and gathered to watch. Nicholas' opponent was a bit shorter than him. Grace watched nervously as they walked to the middle floor, bowed, shook hands and then separated. They both bounced lightly on their toes, their bodies turned slightly to the side and hands down by their sides. The Asian guy kept on advancing but he couldn't land a blow, Nicholas was too quick, he would jump out of the way and circle around to stay away from the edge of the mat. It went on like that for a few minutes. It seemed like Nicholas was content to just watch him and get out of the way. Suddenly, after all of that inaction, Nicholas jumped in the air and somehow spun his body almost parallel to the ground and kicked his opponent twice midair, once in the chest and once in the head. He landed on his feet and took a step back, away from the Asian dude who fell backwards to the floor. They were wearing protective gear, and it was a good thing because she doubted that the Asian guy would be able to get back up if he wasn't. He did get back up though, and he didn't appear to be hurt. The fight continued. It was the same thing again. The Asian guy had a much more aggressive style, he would charge Nicholas with his legs flying, but it was as if Nicholas saw it coming every time. He would jump and slide and sometimes just step out of the way. He made it look so easy. At one point the other guy actually fell over without Nicholas even touching him. Then, after circling and dodging and observing for a long time, out of nowhere Nicholas took a step forward, turned on his leading foot and kicked the other guy in the chest, sending him flying across the floor. "Okay. Time out," the guy in the suit said. "Nicholas, I appreciate that you are winning the fight but you aren't winning the audience. I want to see more aggression. I want to see you fight with passion. Pretend like the bad guys have your girlfriend or something." He turned to the Asian guy. "Jin-Sang, get your act together, this kid isn't even on the circuit," he said strictly. They went back to the center of the floor, bowed and separated again, but this time Nicholas let loose. He landed so many strikes in such quick succession that Grace couldn't even count them. Jin-Sang was stumbling backwards within seconds. Nicholas moved back and let his opponent recover his feet, he stood and watched and then he nodded at Jin-Sang and Jin-Sang nodded back. Nicholas started bouncing on his toes again and without warning he sprinted the three steps across the floor, jumped and spun high in the air, kicking the other guy in the head. "Fuck," Grace heard Adrian breathe in awe behind her. Jin-Sang collapsed onto his knees and then down onto the floor. Nicholas stepped back and unbuckled his headgear. "I've had enough," he said, "it's not a fair fight." "What do you mean not a fair fight?" The man in the suit asked. "Jin-Sang is one of the best fighters on the Korean circuit." "Yeah, well he must be having a bad day or something." Nicholas sounded unimpressed. "I'm not fighting him anymore." He walked over to where Jin-Sang was stumbling to his feet and bowed low and then shook his hand. Nicholas unlaced and pulled off his chest protector. "What else do you want to see?" He sounded pissed. "What tricks can you do?" The woman asked. "What do you want to see?" He asked again impatiently. She looked nervous. The frightening display of his fighting ability coupled with Nicholas' pissed-off attitude had her on the back foot. "Ah, why don't you just show us some jumps and flips... stuff like that?" Nicholas walked back into the center of the room and immediately launched into a series of jumps, his legs flying out in the air, kicking and turning and spinning. Sometimes he landed on both feet, sometimes just one foot touched the ground before he launched back into the air. He somersaulted forward, he flipped backwards, he seemed to be able to stay in motion effortlessly. "Holy fuck, he's like a fucking ninja," Adrian murmured. Grace wasn't surprised by the display. She'd seen him do tricks before. Nicholas had been able to do this sort of stuff since he was a little kid. He just kept on going and going. He jumped high and somersaulted three times in the air before landing and swooping low into a spinning kick, his leg suspended parallel just inches from the floor, then he sprung back into the air, into another series of flips. "Okay, enough," the man said. Nicholas landed on his feet and stood in the middle of the floor facing the suits, puffing. "Can you take your shirt off please?" The woman asked. Nicholas hesitated for a second. It was the first time he'd shown any sign of timidity. He untied his black belt and took off the top of his tobok and dropped it on the ground. Oh fuck. Nicholas looked amazing. His brown skin was shining with sweat, his chest rose and fell as he sucked in air. He had long sleek muscles that moved under taut skin. Grace couldn't help her eyes from roaming over his body, drinking him in. She couldn't prevent her eyes drifting down over his sharply defined pectorals, over the ridges of his abdominals. His oblique abdominals curved down from his waist leading her eyes down further, down to where his pants hung low on his hips, and lower to that mysterious region between his legs. Nicholas had been naked when he had come into her bedroom last night but it had been dark and she had been upset. She hadn't looked at his body, she'd just clutched onto him. Now she couldn't stop looking at his body. Now she wanted to do more than just look, she wanted to touch it. She wanted to run her hands over him. She wanted his hair between her fingers, his breath on her skin. Grace felt her face flush with heat. Her lips were tingling and she had a hot ache that twisted slowly deep within her belly. She knew her heart was beating abnormally fast. She shifted uncomfortably. Adrian was standing right behind her and Mariko was beside her. Grace was burning so intensely that she felt sure that they would feel the heat radiating off her. Her reaction was totally inappropriate. It was like Zach's wedding all over again. It was just Nicholas with his shirt off, there shouldn't have been anything sexy about that. But there was, it was incredibly sexy. Nicholas rarely took his shirt off. He even slept in a t-shirt. Unlike Adrian, who would go shirtless all the time if he could, Nicholas was reserved. He was shy. This exhibition was a rare treat. The man and woman in suits were looking at Nicholas and speaking to each other in hushed tones. "You're Indian?" The woman asked. "I'm American," Nicholas responded flatly. She nodded and paced the next question carefully. "You are of Indian descent?" "Yes." "Can you dance?" She asked. Nicholas nodded. "Do you speak... Indian?" She said the last word tentatively. "Hindi. I can speak a little Hindi, I'm not fluent though." She turned back to the guy in the suit and they whispered to each other again. The guy was nodding thoughtfully. "Okay, Nicholas...?" He searched for Nicholas' name. "Gray. Nicholas Gray." He motioned for Nicholas to join them. "You can put your shirt back on if you want." Nicholas picked up the top of his tobok and put it back on as he crossed the floor to the suits. He tied his belt in quick sharp movements that someone who didn't know him may have mistaken for his usual way. He was still angry. That was it. The show was over. The crowd, which had been murmuring lowly, started to disperse. Luckily the conversation about whether or not Nicholas was Indian had given her time to calm down a bit and Grace was pretty sure she wasn't all red anymore. Mariko and Adrian practiced aikido but Grace didn't feel like working out anymore. She wanted to know what Nicholas was talking about with the suits. She was trying not to look at him but every now and then she would glance over and once she caught him looking at her. At breakfast that morning all Mariko wanted to talk about was whether or not Nicholas was going to sign with the talent agency. Grace thought she could actually see the dollar signs registering in her eyes. Mariko called him Nicky. It annoyed Grace. Nicholas had never been Nick or Nicky, he'd only been Nicholas or Kolya. She guessed it was better than Mariko calling him Kolya. She didn't want to hear that name in Mariko's voice. "I have plenty of time to think about it. I don't really want to talk about it now," Nicholas kept on deflecting her incessant questions. "Dude, why don't you just fight for real?" Adrian asked. "You were kicking that other guy's ass and they said he was one of the best in Korea." It was something that Grace had always wondered but never asked about. Nicholas stopped eating his pancakes and put his fork down. "Have you ever hurt anyone before?" Adrian shrugged. "I punched a guy in the face once, I think I broke his nose." "How did that make you feel?" Nicholas asked. "I dunno, I never really thought about it. I used to play basketball and it happened after a game, there was an all-in brawl. I got hit a couple of times and I hit other people a couple of times, it's just the way it was. Nobody went to the hospital so I never really thought about it again." Nicholas stared at him for what became an uncomfortably long time. "I fractured someone's fingers once." Mariko broke the silence. "She deserved it though." Nicholas looked horrified. "Why did she deserve it?" Mariko's pretty little face twisted into a sly smile. "Just trust me... she deserved it." Nicholas raised his eyebrows at her and just perceptibly shook his head. You would only have noticed it if you were watching him carefully, which Grace was. 3. The Grace I've Known Ch. 07-09 "So you don't want to fight because you might hurt someone?" Adrian asked. "Isn't that the point of taekwondo? To kick the shit out of your opponent?" "No, that's not the point of taekwondo. The point is to learn how to control yourself... and yes, the reason I don't want to fight is because I don't know of any worse feeling than hurting someone. There is nothing honorable about harming someone who is weaker than you are, I don't care if you slap a label on it and call it sport." The room fell silent. "What kind of victory is it when someone is left defeated?" He asked nobody in particular. Nicholas picked up his fork and continued eating his breakfast. "That was Gandhi by the way, not me." That night Nicholas organized to meet his Aunt Julia for dinner, and he asked Grace to go with him. He had printed out the contract that the talent scouts had emailed him and he wanted Julia, who was a lawyer, to look over it for him. They met her at a Japanese restaurant downtown. Julia was so similar to Nicholas' mom and yet so different at the same time. Their physical likeness was undeniable, they could almost have been twins. They were both tall and lithe with brown hair, tanned skin and grey-blue eyes. Both women were elegant. They had the most beautiful bone structure in their faces. Looking at Nicholas sitting beside his Aunt you could tell that they were related, perhaps not at first glance, but when you really looked at them they were remarkably alike. Nicholas had inherited that beautiful bone structure, but he had the male version of it. He had the same high cheekbones and straight jaw-line, but while his female elders' features were soft and angelic, Nicholas' were sharp and decidedly masculine. The difference, what made him look so dissimilar from his mom and aunt, was his complexion. Nicholas had the most beautiful smooth brown skin, skin that whispered of warm climates and vibrant spices. Coupled with his thick black hair and eyes that were such a dark brown that they too approached black, Nicholas looked... exotic. It was no wonder that the talent scouts were so interested in him. In addition to what he could do with that fabulous body of his, Nicholas was incredibly handsome... and they hadn't even seen him smile. Nicholas had a beautiful smile that he'd inherited from both of his fathers. When Grace had gone to visit his Indian grandparents in New York she had immediately recognized the shape of the mouth of the man who's photograph adorned almost every wall of their apartment. Nicholas had inherited his biological father's perfectly proportioned mouth, straight narrow nose and almond shaped eyes, but when he smiled it was pure Tyler. Nicholas' face glowed the same way that Uncle Tyler's did when he smiled. Grace didn't know when he had gotten to be so good looking. Was it during high school? She didn't think so. She tried to remember back to times that she'd looked at him in high school, really looked at him, but she couldn't remember any. Nicholas had always been there but she had never really noticed him. It must have been over the past year that he'd become so handsome. He was almost twenty, maybe this is the point that guys start to look like men, maybe that's what she had noticed recently. If Aunt Julia looked like Aunt Maya her personality was 180 degrees away. You would use words like refined and reserved to describe Nicholas' mom, but you would use words like outgoing and unapologetic to describe Julia. She was perfectly suited to be a lawyer. Although she practiced property law she seemed completely at ease perusing Nicholas' contract. "How long do you have?" She asked. "Until close of business tomorrow, West Coast time." Nicholas had told Mariko that he had plenty of time to think about it, he must not have wanted to talk to her about it at all. So why had he asked Grace to come to dinner with him and Julia? "How do you feel about it?" Julia asked. "I'd kind of like to try the martial arts stuff but I think they're way off base on the Bollywood thing." "Mm..." Julia nodded as she read the document. "Bollywood?" Grace asked him. "Yeah, that's why they wanted to know if I could dance. I don't think I'm interested though, I mean, I'm not even an actor. Why they think that I could show up in Mumbai and take the place by storm with my stilted Hindi and non-existent acting is a mystery to me. Besides which, I don't want to be an actor. I want to work in finance. If I do this movie thing I just want it to be as a stunt guy, just to make some money." The waiter came and Julia started ordering. She ordered for the whole table but before the waiter turned to leave Nicholas added another item. Julia smiled at him. "Feeling adventurous?" Nicholas grinned back. "Why not?" Nicholas always ordered the most unusual thing on the menu. His philosophy was, if you're going to pay someone to cook for you it had better be something that you couldn't cook on your own. "What did you order?" Grace asked. "Steamed liver of monkfish." Grace laughed. It sounded disgusting. "You've been spending too much time with Zach," she told him. When the food came out Nicholas asked the waiter which plate had the monkfish liver on it and how to eat it, and then he tried it right away. "Oh god, it's amazing. You have to try this," he insisted. Grace scrunched up her nose. "I don't know..." "Come on, just close your eyes and open your mouth," he said as he picked up a piece with his chopsticks. Grace wasn't convinced that she wanted the liver of a monkfish in her mouth. "Grace," Nicholas said seriously, "I don't want to have to tell Zach that his little sister is a chicken." Nicholas' dark eyes were leveled on hers, clearly he wasn't going to let this one slide. "Trust me." Grace sighed, closed her eyes and opened her mouth. She felt Nicholas' weight move towards her through the cushion of the seat and his arm brushed up against hers. His hand rested gently on her forearm, not as if to hold her there, as if to reassure her. Then there was something in her mouth. It was smooth and silky on her tongue and the flavor was delicate yet rich, ever so slightly sweet and... just plain delicious. "Oh wow." Grace opened her eyes and Nicholas was smiling at her. "That's really good. You should try it Aunt Julia." She looked over at Julia, who had an amused smirk on her face. Nicholas passed her the plate and she sighed and said, "Such a pity I don't have my hunk of a man here to spoon feed me." Grace felt her face flush red for the second time that day. Nicholas took it in his stride. "How is Uncle Jules?" He asked. Julia had married a man named Julian, so Nicholas had both an Aunt Jules and an Uncle Jules. They had a daughter who they named... Rebecca. Everyone was disappointed in her name. Grace had been rooting for Juliet, her mom had been partial to Juliana. "Julia... Julian... Juliana...Occam's razor," her mom had said, smiling and turning her palms to the heavens. It had made her dad laugh and when Grace asked him to explain she laughed too. Once Nicholas got Julia talking again the rest of the dinner passed without incident. Julia told Nicholas to drop by her office the next afternoon and she would call and negotiate the contract with him there. After they said goodbye to Julia Grace didn't feel like going straight home. She hadn't been downtown at night before and everything looked different. Sad as it was to admit it, Grace's social life was essentially non-existent. Maybe she would try and change that this semester. Adrian was always asking her to come to parties with him. Maybe she would start taking him up on the offer. They walked around the dark cobblestone streets, between all of the red brick buildings. Boston was a beautiful city. "Hey isn't the freedom trail around here somewhere?" She asked. "Yeah, I think you're right." "Have you walked it before?" "Not yet." "We should do it at night." She said, suddenly excited by the idea. "We should come down here when there is a full moon and walk the freedom trail." "Okay, you're on." "We are in the cradle of liberty after all." Nicholas smiled. "That we are." Grace spotted some glowing glass towers and they went to investigate. It was a holocaust memorial. Six tall towers of etched blue glass rose from a black polished stone pathway. They were lit from within and there was smoke drifting up from grates under the pathway giving it an unnerving smell and an eerie feeling. She and Nicholas were the only ones around, adding to the surreal feeling. When she got closer to the glass she saw that the etchings were numbers, hundreds of thousands of numbers all over the glass. She read the placard and learned that each six-digit number represented a person killed in the holocaust. She looked up at the towers. Six of them, all completely covered in numbers. It was breathtaking in its sadness. How could humans be so cruel? People with real flesh and blood and thoughts and feelings hurt and killed so many others. She read the quotes from survivors inscribed in the glass and felt the tension in her chest and the tears on her cheeks. There was so much pain and sadness. They spoke of forced physical labor, excavating graves and burning bodies, hearing the screams of women and children as they were slaughtered. Death. Death was everywhere. It was the corpse of the dignity of a people that rose in the smoke around her feet. One woman described witnessing the murder of her little sister. 'They fell together in their embrace -- my sister and her young friend.' (Rivka Yosselevscka) It was so horrific. Grace ran her fingers over the etched numbers and let her tears fall while Nicholas continued to look around and read the remaining quotes. "Milaya, come, look at this," he beckoned her. She went to him. "Read this one," he said, pointing at the glass. Grace read the quote: 'Ilse, a childhood friend of mine, once found a raspberry in the camp and carried it in her pocket all day to present to me that night on a leaf. Imagine a world in which your entire possession is one raspberry and you give it to your friend.' (Gerda Weissman Klein) Nicholas was standing behind her and he wrapped his arms around her waist. "I would save my only raspberry for you Gracie," he murmured to her in a low voice. Grace leaned back into him and rested her hands over his. "Me too Kolya." There was hope. In the blackness of the night there was still some good. There was still Nicholas. CHAPTER EIGHT FALL, SOPHOMORE YEAR As usual Grace was enormously relieved when she called the testing clinic and they told her that she was negative. The doctors had told her that she could stop worrying about HIV when her six-month test had come back negative, but she found a free clinic and went in to be tested every other month anyway. Now it had been over a year and she was still negative. Everything she had read said that she was all clear but she couldn't help going in for more tests. Disease had become somewhat of an obsession. She was studying the human body at university and every time she learned about a new disease she wanted to be tested for it. She would sit in lectures and listen to the professors and take notes and all the time she would be wondering, 'Do I have that?' She had been tested multiple times for every venereal disease she knew about and she had been tested for blood born diseases, even rare ones that the doctors themselves didn't know about. Her insurance didn't cover most of them. There was a standard package of tests that she was allowed yearly and she needed more than that. Nicholas paid for them. She would go home and tell him about the disease and no matter how strange and obscure it was he would agree that she should get the test. His dad had given him a credit card that he'd told him to use for the things that Grace needed. She felt bad for Uncle Tyler. Not only did he have to keep her secret from his best friends he also had to pay for her neuroticism. But since Nicholas had gone down to New York to film his first kung-fu movie he had a different credit card and he had gotten her one with her name on it that was linked to his so she could pay for her tests on her own. He had sat her down and talked to her very seriously about it before he got them. He kept on talking about having a linked credit history and what that would mean. Grace didn't really understand, she just nodded and agreed with him. She trusted Nicholas, she knew he would do what was best for her. As well as the tests for strange and exotic diseases Nicholas paid for her shrink. She had long ago exceeded the maximum number of visits her insurance allowed. She thought about stopping seeing her but she didn't think she was ready yet. There were some things that she could tell her shrink that she couldn't even tell Nicholas, like about the things that happened between her and Adrian, or rather what didn't happen between them. Grace was starting to doubt her ability to have an intimate relationship. She could do kissing and cuddling, that was okay, but as soon as she felt the hardness in the front of Adrian's pants her brain would flip out. Flash backs was what her shrink called them. Adrian's erection triggered something in her brain that sent her back to that awful night. It was as if she were actually there, it felt so real. She hated flash backs and since it was Adrian's erect penis that triggered them she had started to fear and resent it. It was a source of great stress for her and great contention within their relationship. She also needed her shrink for advice. Grace had been thinking about telling her mom about the assault and she needed to know the best way to break it to her. The problem wasn't just that her mom would be upset about what happened, Grace was worried that she would be upset that it had taken her so long to tell her about it. She decided to do it when her mom came to visit for the Head of the Charles regatta. Her shrink agreed that it was probably best to do it in person, and to do it early in her trip so that she could see how well Grace had recovered from the trauma. It made her proud to hear her shrink say that. It was a stupid thing to pride yourself on, but when she thought about it she guessed that it was an achievement of sorts. She was moving on, she hadn't let those men take her life away from her. She told Nicholas about her plan and he agreed to make himself scarce on the night that her mom arrived. It wasn't a big deal to him, he had joined a band and he went to practice with them a few nights a week anyway, he just asked them to move their Wednesday practice to Thursday so she could be alone with her mom. *** Nicholas was so happy when Grace told him that she was planning on telling her mom about the rape. It showed some emotional progress. Grace had come a long way over the past year but he couldn't help but feel that she had stagnated over the past couple of months. She was obsessed with making sure that she didn't have any diseases. Nicholas had done some research on it and he knew that there was nothing wrong with her. She had been tested for everything, but she was still excessively preoccupied with ensuring that she did not have a disease. He wished he could talk to her shrink, but there were privacy laws. All he wanted to know was if he was helping or hurting her by agreeing that she should get the absurd tests done. Nicholas had been feeling stressed out, and Grace's obsession with medical tests was only part of the problem. He was having difficulties fending off Mariko. He had never been back to her apartment since that incident with the schoolgirl outfit but she came to stay over with him every now and then. She wanted to do things that were beyond his comfort level. She wanted to get acquainted with his cock, and she wanted him to touch her private parts. He just didn't want to. He liked Mariko and he thought that eventually he would want her in that way, but he still didn't feel like he knew her well enough for that level of intimacy. Fleetingly, he wondered if he really was gay, but that was dismissed easily enough when he thought about Grace when he was in the shower. He just needed a nicely matched girl to live with and grow to love. He was thinking seriously about asking his grandparents to arrange a marriage for him. The issue with Mariko sorted itself out the weekend before Grace's mom came to visit. They'd done a double date with Grace and Adrian. They'd gone downtown to see a band play and then come back to the apartment. Mariko had drunk some beer at the club, she wasn't 21 but she'd convinced some guy to buy it for her. She wasn't drunk but she was tipsy. In the bedroom she'd been frisky, she didn't want to just kiss and cuddle the way he did, she wanted to explore him and he had to keep on shutting her down. Eventually she had gotten upset and rolled over. He had tried to talk to her about it but she was unwilling. He lay there wondering what to do and then he heard her breathing go deep and even and he had assumed that she had gone to sleep. Later he woke up and she was getting out of bed. He thought she must have gotten up to go pee and he waited, but he didn't hear noises from the bathroom he heard noises from the living room. He got up and went to investigate. He moved quietly towards the slurping and gurgling sound beside the couch. It was pretty dark in the living room but not so dark that he couldn't see a naked Mariko bent over Adrian at his waist bobbing her head up and down. Adrian's eyes were closed and he was biting down on his lower lip. "Oh fuck," Adrian sighed. It was pretty typical of him. if Nicholas had to guess what words Adrian would mutter during sex he would have said 'fuck' without hesitation. It was one of his favorite words. As awful as it made him feel the emotion that registered in his mind at that moment was relief. He wouldn't have to break up with Mariko, she had gone and done it for him. He didn't know what to do. It looked like they were both enjoying themselves, maybe he should just let them go for it? But he hadn't taken Adrian for the type to do something like this. He seemed committed to Grace. Nicholas remembered what it had felt like when Mariko had attacked him in the schoolgirl outfit. Physically he had wanted it but emotionally he hadn't. Maybe this was the same thing. It wasn't uncommon for Adrian to sleep in the living room when he stayed the night, maybe Adrian had woken up with Mariko's mouth around his cock and he was too stunned to stop her. Mariko slurped and moaned away while she worked her mouth over Adrian and then she sat up. "Oh Adrian," she whispered, "you have such a nice fat cock, I'm going to ride it. I'm going to ride it good baby." "Oh fuck..." Adrian's eyes opened and Nicholas wasn't sure what he saw there. It was dark so he couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw something akin to fear. Nicholas decided this had to stop. If they wanted to fuck they'd have to do it somewhere else. "Mariko, I'd like you to leave now please," he said in a calm even voice. The two of them jumped in surprise and tried to cover themselves up. "Nicky, it's not what it looks like, I can explain," she said. Nicholas shook his head. "It is time for you to go home. Do you want me to call you a cab or will you walk?" Mariko started crying. Nicholas went back into his bedroom and gathered her clothes and purse and deposited them in the bathroom. Then he went back out into the living room. She was huddled up beside the couch while Adrian stood at the edge of the room against the wall. "Mariko, go to the bathroom, put your clothes on and go home," he instructed. 3. The Grace I've Known Ch. 07-09 She didn't move. She just sat there crying. Nicholas walked over to her, picked her up and carried her to the bathroom where he set her on the toilet, flicked on the blindingly bright light, and closed the door behind him as he left. He went back into his bedroom, found his phone and called her a cab. It wasn't that far to her apartment and Mariko knew how to defend herself but he didn't want to be responsible if anything happened to her after he kicked her out in the middle of the night. After he ordered the cab he stood in his bedroom for a few moments, trying to think of what he was going to say to Adrian. He could hear Mariko sobbing in the bathroom and he hoped that Grace hadn't woken. He heard the honk of a cab outside and he grabbed his wallet and left his room. "Tell her to hurry up," he said to Adrian as he passed him on his way out the front door. Adrian looked stunned. He had put his clothes back on but he still had a dazed look about him. Nicholas went down to the cab and told the cabbie the address to take her to. He asked for a pen and he wrote down the number of the cab and the driver's name and then he gave him a $20 bill. It was only a $5 cab ride, but at that point Nicholas would gladly have paid thousands of dollars to get Mariko out of his life, so he wasn't going to miss the extra $15. Mariko appeared and he opened the rear door for her and closed it behind her. He waved to the cabbie and he pulled away. Thank fucking Christ. Mariko must have serious emotional problems. He should have stopped seeing her ages ago. He went back up to the apartment, still unsure of how to deal with Adrian. The problem was that he didn't know if Adrian was responsible for what had happened. When Mariko had pulled the schoolgirl act on him he had been unable to stop her at first. She'd had her mouth around him for some time before he could pull himself out of that weird frozen feeling and push her away, and he had been fully conscious. He could only imagine how difficult it would be to find your voice if you woke up with her mouth working its magic on you. But Adrian was Grace's boyfriend. He should have more restraint than that, when he'd figured out that it wasn't Grace he should have stopped it right away. Grace deserved better than this. But was it really Adrian's fault? Nicholas couldn't figure it out. Inside the apartment Adrian was sitting on the couch with his head in his hands. Nicholas sat down on the desk chair and examined him. Adrian looked distraught. "What happened?" He asked. Adrian looked up. He had a look of desperation about him. "Fuck dude, I don't know. I just woke up and she was on top of me. I swear that I didn't ask for it, I've never even touched her before." Nicholas nodded. He believed him. "Are you okay?" Adrian shrugged his enormous shoulders. What more was there to say? "I'm going to sleep in Grace's room tonight," Nicholas told him. "It's not that I don't trust you, it's just that I'm... concerned for her. I want to talk to her in the morning." Adrian looked up at him. "Are you going to tell her?" "No, you are, after I've had a chance to prepare her." Adrian nodded. "I can't believe you're not freaking out. You are the calmest person I know." Nicholas didn't know what the intention of that comment was so he just ignored it. He got up and went into Grace's room and crawled into his end of her bed. She didn't wake up. Nicholas was thankful that she had slept through that episode. She woke up before he did in the morning. The first thing that Nicholas felt when he became conscious was her warm hand on his arm. God he missed having physical contact with her. "Kolya? What are you doing in here?" She asked. "Milaya..." She was so beautiful in the morning. Her hair was wild and her eyes had a doe-like softness to them. "Something happened last night. Adrian is going to tell you about it but there's something that I want to tell you first." "Okay..." He told her about the episode with Mariko and the schoolgirl outfit. He'd told Mariko that he wouldn't, but he figured that after last night his responsibility to her honor was absolved. He made sure to tell her how he felt about it, not just what happened physically but how even though he knew with absolute certainty that he didn't want it to happen he had been so stunned that he'd been frozen in inaction. How that had made him feel bad about himself. Grace was sitting beside him and she put her arm around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder. "I had that feeling too. It's part of the reason I felt guilty for so long. Sometimes I still think if I just had have been able to unfreeze myself maybe I could have stopped it." Nicholas put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her. "You know you did all you could just to survive," he said. Grace sighed. "So what happened last night?" She asked. "Did she try to molest you again?" "You should go ask Adrian. I'll wait in here." She was gone for about thirty minutes, then he heard the front door open and close and she came back into the bedroom. "Shit hey?" She said it like a question. She looked oddly well composed. He didn't know what he had expected, but he had thought that she would probably be crying at least. "Yeah. Shit." "Are you upset about Mariko?" He grimaced, he didn't want to admit that he wasn't but he also didn't want to lie to her. "Not really. I think I had known for a while that I needed to break up with her." "God, I couldn't stand the way she called you Nicky, I can't think of anything more annoying than the name Nicky in Mariko's squeaky little voice." Nicholas laughed. "Me too. I asked her not to call me that, but, as it has become abundantly clear, Mariko isn't really interested in what anyone else wants." Grace nodded, he was surprised by how well she was taking this. "Can you tell me exactly what you saw?" She asked. Nicholas did and he didn't spare the details. "So what did you tell him?" He asked. "I said I needed to think about it and that I'd call him later today. I tried to be nice about it. On the one hand I feel like maybe he's been raped, but then on the other hand I feel like he should have been able to say no. You said no to her, how come he couldn't?" Nicholas was torn. Honestly, he wanted Grace to break up with Adrian. It was part of the fantasy that he played in his head where everyone else just vanished and Grace fell in love with him and they lived happily ever after. But Nicholas was a realist. That wasn't going to happen. Even if Grace broke up with Adrian, there would be someone else. Nicholas was not Grace's type. No matter how many jocks she broke up with she still wouldn't fall in love with him. "Grace I've been studying martial arts almost all my life, a big part of that is self control and introspection, maybe that helped me. I don't mean to put Adrian down or anything, but I don't really think he's the sort for self-examination." She nodded. "What do you think I should do?" "I don't know. This one is going to have to be your call." Grace stared out the window for a while. He thought maybe the conversation was over but then she spoke again. "He said, 'Thank god Nicholas walked in,' that doesn't sound like something someone would say if they really wanted what was going on. I think he was raped. I think you were both raped. You should call the cops." Nicholas was surprised. He hadn't really thought of the schoolgirl episode as rape before, and he certainly hadn't considered calling the cops. "I don't know about the cops Gracie. Mariko is a messed up girl who probably has a ton of emotional baggage that causes her to want to do..." Grace cut him off. "She used her body to take control away from you. She didn't give you the choice to say no. How is that not rape?" Nicholas really didn't want to call the cops. "Gracie, rape is a very serious allegation. I don't think what Mariko did to me was the same as what those other men did to you. I don't think Mariko realized that I didn't want her to do what she was doing. I think when I told her to stop she didn't hear me because she just couldn't fathom that I could be serious." "Nicholas, twenty years ago people didn't take women seriously when they said no, this is the same thing. No should mean no, no matter if it is a guy or a girl saying it." He agreed with her but he still didn't want to go to the police. "I'll write her a letter. I'll tell her how she made me feel and tell her that she should be... less aggressive with guys in the future. Make sure they are into it before she starts." Grace stared at him for a long time before she nodded. "I should call Adrian, he's probably feeling like shit right now." So Grace didn't break up with Adrian. She spent the day with him and she came home that night and told Nicholas that she was happy with the decision that she'd made and thanked him for helping her to make it. It made Nicholas sad, but in an odd way it also made him happy. He'd been a big enough man to put Grace's happiness ahead of his own. CHAPTER NINE The next Thursday Grace's mom, Emma, came to visit for a long weekend to watch the big rowing regatta. Nicholas had rescheduled band practice to run late on Thursday to give Grace plenty of time to talk with her and tell her about what had happened and why she had kept it to herself. He was really nervous to go home. Emma was staying at the apartment with them and he didn't know how she would react. She had been a social worker for many years before she had become a lawyer so she'd most likely had training in how to deal with rape victims, but it was probably very different when it was your own daughter telling you the horrific tale. When he got home they were curled up together on the couch with his laptop. "Hi Aunt Emma," he greeted her. She got up and spread her arms out to hug him well before she reached him. When she got close he could see that she had been crying. Her eyes were puffy and rimmed with red. She held on to him for a long time and then she started crying in his arms. He felt a bit awkward. The only woman he had ever comforted before was Grace. Nicholas rubbed her back and let her cry for what seemed like a very long time. He didn't look up at Grace. He just stood there and rubbed Emma's back. "I will never be able to thank you enough," she whispered to him. He squeezed her gently. "You don't have to," he replied. "Come and look at this one," Grace said. They went to the couch and sat together and looked through his dad's photos again. "I never realized your dad had all of these," Emma said. "I knew he took a lot of photos, but this is insane. He has photos of everything. There are photos from when I was in college on here. There are photos of Sam from when he was a freshman." They looked through those early photos of his dad and Sam in college. They looked so young. There was a blonde woman in some of the photos clinging to his dad. "Who's that?" Nicholas asked. "Urgh," Emma replied, "that was Kelly. She was a complete nightmare." "Huh. I never knew dad had a girlfriend before he met mom." "Mm... it was a couple of years before. Kelly was long gone by the time you and your mom showed up." "Did you and dad have other boyfriends and girlfriends?" Grace asked her. Emma smiled. "I didn't but your dad had one. I never met her but Uncle Tyler told me once that she was a nutcase. I don't remember her name anymore." Huh. It seemed that the generations could change but there would always be crazy women available to date. That Saturday was Grace's big race. It was a gorgeous fall day. The trees that lined the Charles River were vibrant with red and orange and yellow leaves, which contrasted dramatically with the blue sky. Nicholas couldn't help but notice how different everything seemed from last year. Last year everything was grey and gloomy and depressing. This year it was bright and beautiful and exciting. He and Emma took a blanket and found a good place to sit on one of the big bends in the river to watch. It wasn't as good a view as from the bridge but neither of them felt like fighting the crowds. It was so good to be able to talk to someone about Grace. Although his dad knew in general what had happened to her he felt like it would be a violation of her privacy to divulge details or discuss the problems that she was still having with his dad. With Emma it was different. She was a trained social worker, so she seemed to understand the issues without him actually saying them. She asked the right questions and she asked them in a way that made him feel like he wasn't betraying Grace by sharing his feelings. He told her about Grace's obsession with medical tests and she told him that so long as it didn't become something that interrupted her life too severely he shouldn't worry about it. "It should get better with time," she said. "If she gets much worse or if she doesn't settle down in another six months, then we'll worry about it." 'We'll worry about it,' it was a phrase that made Nicholas feel so amazingly relieved. He wasn't alone anymore. "Do you think she realizes that she's obsessing about it?" Emma asked. "I don't know. I don't know what she thinks." "She sees a psychologist, right?" "Yeah, she goes every other week now. She used to go every week, but she got sick of it. She stopped going to her support group a few months ago, she said it was too depressing. I don't know if I should try and make her go or not. I just guess. I have no idea what the best thing is for her." He was looking out over the river and he felt Emma's gaze on him. "Nicholas..." He looked at her. Emma's eyes were almost as dark brown as his were, and they were full of love. "You have done the most amazing thing by helping her. All of the things you have done for her Nicholas, they've all been good. You have given her everything she needed." It felt so good to hear those words. He didn't realize how badly he needed to hear them until she'd said them. Nicholas felt the tears well up in his eyes. He loved Grace so much and half of the time he didn't even know if what he was saying to her was the right thing or not. Emma leaned in closer and put her arms around him. "You took on an extraordinary responsibility Kolya, and you've handled it with sensitivity beyond your years. I am so proud of you." Nicholas let his head rest in the crook of her neck. The use of his nickname by his aunt coupled with the praise made him feel like a boy again. He was just a boy and he'd done something good and his aunty was giving him a hug for it. He rested like that for a moment, relishing the feeling of protection that she gave him. He felt like Aunt Emma was going to make everything alright. "Are you upset that she didn't tell you sooner?" He asked. He knew that was something that Grace had been worried about. Emma sighed. "I am and I'm not. I'm glad she didn't tell Sam, maybe I'm glad she didn't tell me." Nicholas pulled away from her and looked at her face, her eyes were calm and steady despite this unexpected answer. Nicholas had been sure that she would have wanted to know as soon as it had happened. Emma must have sensed his surprise and she explained, "What would we have done Nicholas? Pulled her out of school? Forced her to come home to Denver to sit and wallow in sadness, not just her sadness but our sadness too? Taken school and rowing away from her on top of everything else?" Emma shook her head and looked out over the river. "Rape is an awful thing on many different levels. Ordeals like these tear families apart. I've seen it myself. What good would it have done Grace for her to feel like what happened to her was causing her family pain? It only would have made her recovery more difficult." Emma looked back at Nicholas. "If she were alone it would have been a different story, but she wasn't. She had everything she needed right here. The only reason I wish I had known earlier is for you. I can't imagine what you have been through Kolya..." Nicholas shook his head. "No. It was nothing." He would walk to the end of the earth for Grace, what he had done for her was just a small token. Emma looked at him and the seconds passed. He couldn't tell what she was thinking. Finally she changed the topic, she said, "So... what do you think of this Adrian character?" "Honestly?" "No doofus, I want you to water it down for me," she said sarcastically. "Of course I want your honest opinion." "Well... I like him. I think he is a nice guy..." "But..." she could tell there was more. "I don't think he has much up top. Or if he does he doesn't use it all that often." Emma laughed. "That's the same thing that Sam said after he met him." "It's not like he's stupid or anything, he just not a thinker," Nicholas continued. "We all go to the gym on Sundays to practice self defense and one time he told me that he had punched someone in the face when he was in high school. No big deal, right? Most guys get in a fight or two in high school, the idea is to learn that beating the shit out of each other isn't the best way to sort out your differences. I asked him how it made him feel and he goes, 'I dunno, I never thought about it.' I couldn't believe it." Emma had an amused look on her face. "So I shouldn't put my money on him to become the next Mahatma Gandhi?" Nicholas laughed. "I'd say there'd be a pretty high index of risk associated with that bet." He felt bad for saying uncomplimentary things about Adrian, for some reason he felt the need to defend him. "Seriously though Emma, I think he's a nice guy. Besides, he seems to make Grace happy and that's what's important, right?" Emma had a funny little half smile on her face. "Right," she confirmed. Not long after that Grace's crew came rowing by. Nicholas and Emma stood and cheered and waved their arms but she didn't look at them. He took some photos as they passed and then they walked back to the boathouse to meet her. They met up with Adrian by the BU Bridge. Adrian went to Northeastern University, which was a rival school and he didn't want to be seen to be fraternizing with the enemy by going into BU's boathouse. Nicholas thought it was all a bit lame, but whatever. Grace introduced her mom to Adrian and they walked around the huge riverside festival, weaving between food-stands, merchandise stalls and the tents where they sold photographs of the crews taken by professional photographers who stood atop the bridges with their fancy cameras and telescopic zoom lenses. They looked through the proofs of the photos until they found the ones of Grace's crew. Adrian's crew didn't race until the next day so there were no photos of him yet. There weren't any close ups of Grace but there were quite a few photos of her crew and she pointed out all of the things they were doing wrong in each picture to her mom, who nodded and asked questions about rowing technique. Adrian motioned for him to go to the other end of the tent with him. He hadn't seen him since last Saturday night, right after the unfortunate incident with Mariko. "What's up?" Nicholas asked. Adrian seemed to be searching for words. He didn't have his usual confidence about him. "I want to thank you." Nicholas waited. He didn't know what Adrian was thanking him for. "For stopping Mariko when I couldn't do it myself." Nicholas nodded. "Okay. You're welcome." "Grace told me that you told her that you didn't think it was my fault." "Right." Nicholas didn't really want Adrian's gratitude, it was Nicholas' fault that Mariko had been in the apartment in the first place. "In my opinion Mariko was... abnormally enthusiastic when it came to sex, to the point where I wonder if she had some sort of imbalance or emotional trauma that caused her to act irrationally." 3. The Grace I've Known Ch. 07-09 Adrian smiled and shook his head. "Dude, just say it. The bitch was fucked up." Nicholas laughed, as much as Adrian was a bit of a simpleton, this time he had really distilled the essence of an argument into one phrase that said it all. "The bitch was fucked up," Nicholas repeated. "Grace wants me to go to the police." Nicholas wasn't surprised. "Are you going to?" "I dunno, I'd feel like a dick, I think they'd laugh at me." Nicholas shrugged. "I don't know. I can see it both ways. On the one hand it should be illegal to perform sex acts on someone who is sleeping and so you have every right to file a complaint. On the other hand I don't think she realized that she was doing anything wrong. Morally wrong perhaps, but not physically wrong. I think she just assumed that is what all guys want." Adrian appeared to be deep in thought, he was staring out the door of the tent at nothing in particular. Finally he shook his head. "Fuck," he said. "Thank god you walked in. I couldn't imagine the extra level of shitty I would be feeling right now if she had have... well, you know." Either Adrian was an excellent actor or Grace was right, he'd been sexually assaulted. Nicholas thought it was the latter. A few weeks later they traveled back to Denver for thanksgiving. Nicholas was both looking forward to seeing his family and dreading it at the same time. He was going to tell his mom that he wasn't gay. He didn't know how she would take it. It had been almost a year and they had never had a conversation about his sexuality, so he had no idea how she felt about it. Grace seemed on edge too. She had told her mom that she could tell her dad about the rape and she was nervous to see him. His dad picked them up from the airport. He looked different, there was something wrong with his face. His nose was swollen. Nicholas waited until they had dropped Grace off before asking what had happened. His dad grimaced and shifted uncomfortably in the driver's seat. "Nothing, I just walked into a door." "What? I don't believe that for a second. Someone hit you. Did Lucas hit you?" Lucas was a nice kid but he was fourteen years old, if there was an age for striking out, it was probably pretty close to fourteen. Nicholas didn't want his kid brother turning into a thug or a bully, if he'd hit their dad he was going to give him an earful about it. "Huh? No, it wasn't Lucas... Sam hit me. He lost it when Emma told him about Grace, he was looking for someone to blame. Don't say anything. He feels really bad about it, and the boys don't know. We're not going to tell the boys about Grace's... ordeal. Emma says it would be too challenging for them." "But Mom must know?" "Yeah, she pieced it together that something had happened to Grace and I confirmed it. She was pretty upset on a number of different levels." "Mm, yeah well it was always going to be upsetting. Not much can be done about that." Nicholas couldn't believe that Sam had hit his dad. He must have really flown off the handle. It was totally out of character for Sam, he was usually a very calm and collected person. Now Nicholas understood why Emma thought that it was for the best that Grace hadn't told him right away. He wasn't sure if Sam was stable or not. When he saw him that night he seemed calm enough but there was something in his demeanor that belied his unease. His smile was just a split-second too slow. It made Nicholas nervous. He didn't want Grace around someone who was not stable. He was both cautious and relieved when Sam asked him to go to the store with him to pick up some last minute items that he needed for the thanksgiving dinner. Once they were in the car he dropped the façade. "Fuck," Sam said, shaking his head. That one word was warning enough for Nicholas. He had only ever heard Sam say fuck once before, when Grace had accidentally eaten a granola bar that had pecans in it and Sam had to use an epipen on her to prevent her from going into anaphylactic shock. Nicholas wasn't afraid of Sam physically, he was just afraid of what he was going to say to him about keeping Grace's secret. Sam was his Uncle. He had taken care of Nicholas every Thursday and Friday when he was a kid, and had been loving and supportive to a fault. He had driven him from school to ballet on Thursdays and taekwondo on Fridays. He had been the one who taught him how to drive because Nicholas' dad got motion sickness too badly to be able to do it. Nicholas had betrayed him, but then he had betrayed them all. "I don't know what I want to say to you," Sam admitted. "I've been feeling this way a lot since Emma told me. I feel angry and powerless and nauseated but there is nobody to blame. I wish there was somebody that I could focus all of my hate on, but there isn't. So what do I do with it? How do I make it go away?" Nicholas didn't know what to say. He rarely thought about Grace's attackers. At first there hadn't been enough time, he was running around trying to medicate her and keep her life in motion and live his all at the same time. Once things settled down he had thought about them every now and then but when he felt the anger he would just go to the gym and work out, which turned the anger into sadness. Sadness was easier for Nicholas to handle. Sam sighed and was silent for a time. "Thank you for looking after Grace," he said quietly. "I don't like the fact that she couldn't come to us when it happened, but I'm glad she went to you. Emma says you dealt with this better than we would have and I guess I should trust her on that." "You don't need to thank me Sam. This is Grace that we're talking about, how could I not look after Grace?" Although Nicholas had meant to reassure him, he watched Sam's hands grip the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles turned white. He looked at his face and saw that his jaw was clenched and his eyes were staring straight ahead. Why had that pissed him off? Nicholas thought it best to keep his mouth shut, so he sat still and waited to see if Sam had anything else to say. "I don't like it that I was the only man around here who wasn't allowed to know, who wasn't allowed to help. She is my daughter. I should have been allowed to help, not Tyler." Sam didn't get it. He didn't understand why Grace couldn't tell him. "Sam, this is going to sound really fucked up, but just listen... For a long time Grace blamed herself for what happened. I know it sounds stupid, but she really honestly believed that it was her fault. She couldn't tell you because she was ashamed. You and Emma taught her that sex was special, and then some men raped her and she thought she had let you down by not being able to prevent it. The only reason she let me tell my dad was because she cared less about his perception of her. That and we needed him financially." Sam was crying. Tears rolled down his cheeks and stuttered over the stubble on his jaw. Nicholas had never seen Sam cry before. His dad cried at the drop of a hat, but not Sam. "I want to pay your dad back but he says he doesn't have the records." Poor Sam. This was really crushing him. His dad probably hadn't kept any records, he was stupid when it came to money. "I have them. I can tell you how much it all cost." "You kept records?" Sam seemed surprised. "Of course... health expenditures are tax deductible." Sam took his eyes off the road and looked at Nicholas for a moment and then he burst out laughing. Nicholas didn't understand. Was Sam hysterical? He didn't appear to be out of control, he seemed to be genuinely amused. "What?" Nicholas asked. Sam shook his head. He was smiling when he said, "Kolya, you are one in a million." Nicholas waited until after thanksgiving to show Sam the spreadsheet of all of Grace's medical expenses. He had a separate one that had all of the other things that his dad had paid for; the deposit and rent for the apartment and all of the furniture in it. He walked Sam through it line by line. "This is where she reached the maximum benefit for mental health care," he explained when he got to the point where her psychologist's bill went from the co-pay of thirteen dollars to the full price of ninety dollars. "She was going to stop seeing her shrink when that happened but I encouraged her to keep going so we compromised and from here on she only went every other week." The bills after August first were tabulated separately, and he explained, "This is when I started paying for everything." "What?" Sam asked. "I started paying here, on August first, after I got paid for the movie." "Why?" Nicholas wasn't about to tell him the truth. He wasn't going to tell Sam that he paid for Grace because he wanted to. "It was just easier. I got her a credit card linked to my account so she could pay for stuff on her own. That way I didn't need to be physically there when she saw her psychologist or needed to pay for a test." "Oh... Okay." Sam was staring at him, watching him carefully. Nicholas tried not to let it bother him, he continued explaining the expenditures. "You'll notice that she's been having a lot of pathology tests recently, most of which are not covered by her insurance policy. She always asks me if she should get these weird tests done and she looks so worried that I say yes. It's an indulgence. There's nothing wrong with her. If you don't want to pay for them I understand." Sam shook his head. "No, no, I'll pay for them. Whatever you think she needs." Nicholas nodded and showed him how he had calculated the totals for both his dad and himself. Sam thanked him. He couldn't help but feel that this money held some special significance for Sam. When they had gone to the grocery store he had seemed so broken, so conflicted. Now he seemed a little more at ease, not recovered but a little more comfortable with the situation. It turned out that his dad had already told his mom that he wasn't gay and she treated it like a non-issue. Nicholas was glad, he felt a lot better this year. He was aware that all of the adults around him were feeling a lot worse, but it was better for him and he was pretty sure it was better for Grace. Last year she had been like a zombie, this year she seemed to be in the holiday spirit. They went ice-skating with their brothers one day and they went with their dads and brothers to choose Christmas trees on another. Nicholas found himself riding alone with his dad on the long drive back to the house. He asked him if he was dating anyone. "Not right now. I had a girlfriend for a few months, a girl I met at the taekwondo gym, but she turned out to be... well she was totally deranged, so that didn't work out." His dad laughed. "There are a lot of them out there. You need to be careful. Especially now that you're a movie star and all." Nicholas rolled his eyes. It had suddenly become everyone's favorite joke to tease him about being in a movie. Nicholas didn't really know why he said it, but he blurted out, "I think I want an arranged marriage." "What!?" His dad almost drove off the side of the road in shock. After he had recovered himself he asked, "You're not really serious are you?" Nicholas' silence was all the answer he needed. "Nicholas, I don't understand... why would you want that? Don't you want to fall in love?" "I already am in love dad, but she doesn't love me back, not in the same way." There was a pause while his dad absorbed this piece of information. "Are you... are you talking about Grace?" He asked tentatively. "Yeah, I'm in love with Grace and I think it's because our relationship is like a well arranged marriage, just without the physical part." His dad shook his head, clearly confused. "What are you talking about?" "Well, think about it dad, before we left for college Grace and I weren't even friends, I had no desire to even be her friend. I thought that apart from our family we had nothing in common. Of course I loved her, like a cousin would, but I thought we were so different that the only times we would ever see each other again was at family functions, and I was fine with that. "But then we started living together and everything changed for me. We started sharing things, we got into little routines and our lives became intertwined. I always wanted to make sure she was safe, but now it is more. Now I want to make sure she is happy, now I want to do things that will make her happy, to make her feel special. "It's not just that though. I want to have a future with her. When we graduate I want us to decide together where we're going to live and work. I want to save up my money so we can buy a house. I want to go house hunting with her and make sure we choose a place that is big enough for a family. I want to hold our children and protect them and make sure they grow up into good, respectable people." Nicholas had been thinking these things for a long time but he had never voiced them. It was actually pretty heartbreaking to hear them out loud. He was in love with Grace and she didn't love him back. His dad took his eyes off the road and glanced at Nicholas for a second. "Sounds like you're in love with her." Yeah, no shit Einstein, Nicholas thought. "Yes, and I think it is because we're like a well arranged marriage. We have all of the right attributes that are matched when a marriage is arranged." "Like what?" "We are from reputable families of the same social status, we have the same education level, our professional lives will be compatible, we've had similar family lives, neither of us are religious, I'm taller than her and I'm older than her. Those are the main factors that are matched." "Jesus Nicholas." His dad shook his head. "You are so like Sam. If it weren't his daughter we're talking about I'd have you talk to him about this." "What do you mean I'm like Sam? Sam and I are nothing alike." "You're so analytical. You use your brain too much." "But dad all of the facts point to the same conclusion. I fell in love with Grace because we are well matched and we have been living together for the past year." "No. I don't buy it. Living with a woman doesn't make you fall in love with her. Before I met your mother I had a girlfriend that I lived with for two years and I never fell in love with her." Nicholas thought back to the photos of the blonde woman, Emma had said she was a nightmare. "Yeah, but were you well matched?" "What are the attributes that you match again?" Nicholas listed them off and each time his dad said yes. It seemed like he had been compatible with first girlfriend but for some reason it didn't work. For the first time Nicholas considered what it would be like to be married to someone you didn't love, or who didn't love you. What would that do to your children? "Nicholas, if you're in love with Grace it's not because you've been living with her, it's because your heart has recognized her intrinsic beauty." Well fuck. His dad was saying that the special feelings he had for Grace were indeed special. He could accept them and deal with them when he had viewed them as a normal response to the situation, but how could he deal with them if they were actually unique? What if Grace was the only woman he could ever love? He had been encouraging her to try and make things work with Adrian, maybe he should have been concentrating his efforts on trying to make her fall in love with him.